THEORIES OF TRUTH, VALUE, AND RATIONALITY IN LUKACS, ALTHUSSER, AND HABERMAS (Gyorgy Lukacs, Louis Althusser, Juergen Habermas)

One thesis of this dissertation is that adequate analysis of epistemological questions requires a sociological theory that begins its theory of truth with the notion of action and praxis rather than with the notion of abstract ideas.; The early positivists subscribed to a theory of truth resting on the premise of subject-object differentiation. Both Kant and Hegel challenged the early positivists' premise and offered a theory of truth emphasizing the creation of the object by the activities of the subject. Marx applied the notion of genesis to social reality and offered a theory of truth that is realized through the processes of praxis. According to Marx's theory of truth, genesis can be conscious or unconscious, depending upon the democratic or undemocratic power structure of society. Marx's notion of an "unconscious genesis" represents an Aufhebung of both structuralist-positivist and hermeneutical-phenomenological concepts. In this sense, Marx's theory is a critique of instrumental reason. Economistic readings of Marx, however, often confine the notion of praxis to instrumental action that leads to a technocratic consciousness. Althusser's structuralism belongs to this tradition.; Lukacs's theory of reification, his rejection of the dialectic of nature, and his emphasis on the specificity of proletarian self-consciousness challenge a "positivistic" Marxism and pave the way for critical theory.; For Habermas, the genesis of social reality is composed of both instrumental action and symbolic interaction. According to Habermas, practical rationality cannot be defined in terms of scientific knowledge; practical rationality can be defined only in a democratic context involving the decision of people engaged in free communication. Critical theory, as the unity of reason and interest, aims at liberation of people from systematic distortions of communication.; The central questions discussed during the analysis of the possibility of a critical theory include: the order of categories, the theory of fetishism, the theory of Language, the definition of "consciousness" and "unconsciousness", the relation of individual to society, the meaning of meaning in social reality, social ontology, the status of the dialectic, and the relations between knowledge and interest and the whole stance of the sociology of knowledge.